King, meanwhile, has taken to talking up his relationship with the White House and with Trump personally. “I do have a good relationship with the president,” he told a Rock Rapids, Iowa, town hall audience on Feb. 18. “Working with the executive branch and the White House is better, also,” he said, calling his banishment a “political lynching” orchestrated by “never-Trumpers” and “globalists.”King’s office did not respond to HuffPost requests for comment. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders similarly did not respond to queries about King’s claims of access and influence, or whether Trump personally has ever criticized King for his views. On Jan. 17, after the House had already passed a resolution condemning King’s remarks, Trump claimed he knew nothing about any of it.

Source: Huffington Post March 13, 2019 22:13 UTC